A fan descender provides an exhilarating experience for adventure-minded individuals. It comprises an elevated platform (which may form part of or be set upon a tower, a bridge, a crane cradle, a building or a tree etc) from which a user jumps, his fall being controlled by a windage brake in the form of a fan rotated by a line connected to the jumper by means of a harness. If the line rotates the fan at a constant speed, the air drag on the fan is similarly constant, and the jumper descends at a steady rate. For greater exhilaration, however, the fan descender is designed so that the line initially rotates the fan relatively slowly, with low drag, and the fan does not accelerate to provide full drag until the jumper nears the ground. This is achieved by having the line wound helically upon a spool connected to the fan, the spool tapering along the length of the helix so as to be accelerated as the line unwinds. By this means the jumper experiences something that feels like freefall immediately after jumping but is slowed to a safe rate of descent before landing.
A disadvantage of previous windage brakes for fan descenders is that they have commonly used a counterweight arrangement to retrieve the line after each jump: that is, a weight is lifted as the jumper descends, and after the jump is completed this weight and the jumper releases the harness, the weight itself descends again and retrieves the line. This restricts locations where the fan descender can be installed, requires an involved installation procedure and has a somewhat unprofessional appearance.